We settled in to a few cruisey days in the Charlotte campground/bunkhouse. Our host Sid turned out to be quite a colourful character and could he talk! He professed to be a Master Mariner and according to him he knew the waters of Haida Gwaii better than anyone else. He thought we were nuts heading south on West Coast of Moresby Island because according to Sid the Japanese Current flows north at a constant 1.5knots! Sure enough the warm Japanese Current is a northerly flow in these waters and like Gulf Stream in the Northern Atlantic is a major factor in the relatively mild climate. The trouble was who to believe? ... Our boating guide, which didn’t mention the current and neither did any of the accounts of kayakers travelling the coast who had all circumnavigated Haida Gwaii anti clockwise, or a colourful character now running a rundown funky campground? Sid was also very dismissive of our guide, “That guy doesn’t know these waters he’s just copied the information from someone else.” Whereas the author states in the introduction his research has included a dozen small boat journeys around Haida Gwaii and there’s no doubting his seamanship having completed a 120 nautical mile open water crossing from Haida Gwaii to Vancouver Island, in a 15ft fibreglass dinghy. If there really was such a constant and significant current surely we’d have got some hint of it before now? A number of sources had informed us that the tidal flow on the West Coast of Haida Gwaii floods north at up to 1.5kn and ebbs south at up to 0.5kn but nothing about the Japanese Current. However much I value local knowledge there was doubt in our minds on this one, we didn’t tell Sid but we were tempted not change our plans.
We spent a lovely afternoon and evening with Jonny, the kayaker we’d met paddling into Charlotte, his partner Steph and their children Maurice and Elise. An amazing multi lingual family English, French and Cantonese!
Monday 26 June and a huge food shop in the supermarket. So huge we wondered how we were going to get it all back to the campground 1.5km away. Sure enough the Canadians pulled off their niceness again with the manager arranging a friend to drive us and our mountains of food back to our tent.
Next day with three weeks food packed away with everything else we launched at just before HW heading for Skidegate Narrows. We had 3hrs+ to get there before the westerly flow turned against us. We made it, just, to a lovely camp on Downie Island in West Narrows despite the headwind and absolutely starving too as we hadn’t time to stop for lunch.
The challenge the next day was the Ts’aahl Narrows In Buck Channel which dries for 1.5km at low tide. We hadn’t been able to find any reliable information at what state of the tide we’d be able get through so we just turned up expecting a wait, especially as we arrived at LW. Four hours later, we’d explored the surrounding shoreline, lit a fire and had a coffee and Lynne was up to date with her diary. We were right on the watershed when the waters met and we were afloat.
As the Haida would say “Gam nang gil tl’a chiixwaay Gid Gang” - the tide waits for no one.
Rounding Buck Point and there was no question we’d arrived on the West Coast. The forecast strong South Easterly wind, it’s chop, the rebound off the cliffs and the Westerly swell made for a chaotic sea and very slow going. We’d planned to get around Annesley Point about 9km away to shelter and campsite, but I was considering turning around and going back to the lovely calm bay in Buck Channel where we’d just had lunch when Lynne shouted we could head for Kitgoro Inlet. Only 3 or 4km away and we knew there was shelter and camping there too. We fought our way forward until eventually through the grey murk we could see the narrow 100m wide slot into the Inlet, what a wonderful sight! Inside the Inlet the water was almost mirror calm and there was virtually no wind. We were very glad to get ashore.
The next day too was grey, overcast with poor visibility, the SE wind still blew, the chaotic sea still went up and down and side to side all at once. It seemed to take forever to cross Englefield Bay to a small sheltered beach just east of Denham Pt. Lunchtime, but we’d had enough. We set up camp and hoped for a better day tomorrow.
On the water at about 7 the next morning, the forecast was for light winds but there was barely enough breeze to ripple the water all day. The swell and sea had dropped, the surface smooth; it was so nice to just plod meditatively along in our regular paddling rhythm. We seemed to be flying along though in theory with a flooding tide we should have had a slight counter current. As we bobbed around off a rocky point having a break and something to eat we were actually drifting south. So much for Sid’s 1.5kn northerly flow!
The day was just as grey and dreary as the previous two, cloud level about 200m and visibility a couple of kms at most. I commented that I’m sure the West Coast of Haida Gwaii was spectacularly beautiful - if you could see it. The nature of the coast was quite different to the West Coast of Graham Is which was generally low lying with the mountains far in the background. Here the mountains, not that we could often see them, dropped steeply into the sea and the coastline was dominated by craggy cliffs and offshore rocks. It just looked, and felt, a much wilder place. Just north of Tasu Sound we stopped for lunch in an incredibly narrow deep bay, the heavily vegetated cliffs on each side dropped sheer straight out of the low cloud and into the water. Lynne wrote in her diary -
“as we paddled in with near vertical cliffs each side disappearing into the fog, an eerie breeze swirled around us and was blowing cold and strong by the time we landed on small sharp rocks in the braided stream entrance for an uneasy lunch break. The chilling wind disappeared as we paddled out of the bay.”
The extended forecast had been promising NWesterly winds and we’d been unashamedly looking forward to them. A chance to get the sails up and get some distance covered. It felt we still had a long way to go to and a morale boosting jump down the coast under sail was just what we needed. NWesterly weather too is generally dry, clear and sunny, which was also just what we needed. In the last three days of mist and a light drizzle that soaks you through before you know it, the damp had slowly worked its way into our dry clothes and sleeping bags and I’m sure our kayaking thermals were wetter the in the morning than when we took them off. The last day or two I’d given up hanging them up to ‘dry’ just leaving them in a soggy pile for the morning.
That days camp at Blue Heron Bay provided the opportunity for a walk up into ‘the alpine’ open rocky country with low hardy vegetation much like exposed Tasmanian alpine country above about a 1000m. It was nice to stretch the legs and get a view from a different perspective than sea level as all our camps up until now have been hemmed in by thick forest. A bit of altitude enabled us to receive the weather on the VHF too, still a NWesterly outlook, moderate tomorrow but building to 25- 30kns and more in the coming days.
As we paddled out of Blue Heron Bay the next morning into a headwind, my mind was hoping, hoping the forecast was right. The headwind coming out of the Bay meant nothing, pretty much any wind direction even a SW or S would be funneled into the entrance.
As we turned south, both sails went up and with relief we could feel the boat surge forward. It was still overcast, not as grey though and as the morning progressed the cloud slowly broke up and we rolled along basking in the sun. Glorious. We made such good progress that when Lynne mentioned Puffin Cove for lunch I thought “No, surely not that’s way down the coast, we haven’t got that far?”. Sure enough within half an hour we were entering a little haven of a bay through a narrow entrance between massive rounded boulders reminiscent of Tas East Coast granite shorelines. The bay fringed with white sandy beaches was where Neil and Betty Carey built a cabin and lived for many years. I’d tried unsuccessfully to obtain a copy of Neil Carey’s 1982 book ‘Puffin Cove’ to read in preparation for our trip.
We clambered up through the trapdoor into their now fairly derelict one room cabin out of the wind for a quick lunch. Our guide book written 2008 mentioned that Parks Canada maintained a radio in the cabin and that visitors should give them a call if only to check the radio was operating properly. Not now though, on the table was a Parks Canada Pelican case containing an EPIRB. We didn’t test it.
Outside Puffin Cove the wind had picked up but even with just one sail up we still raced south to camp at Sgi’lgi in Gowgaia Bay. Our mood had lifted considerably, not only had we made a 50km jump down the coast, but the sun and the breeze at Sgi’lgi quickly aired our clothes, tent, sleeping bags and even dried our thermals so much they were crispy.
The next section of coast was probably the crux of the Moresby coastline. There was shelter and camping in Wells Cove about 10km south of Sgi’lgi then no landing spots for 25km until past McLean Fraser Point and around Nagas Pt into Flamingo Inlet. Not only that but every source of information, even Sid, had warning words about McLean Fraser Point. Sid had dug out a chart and pointed with a finger engrained with dirt at the symbols off McLean Fraser Pt, “Do you know what those symbols mean?” “Sure, overfalls,” I replied. “Not overfalls! Those are waterfalls! I’ve been over an 11 foot drop in water level just there!” McLean Fraser Pt is such a small blip on the coastline that geographically it barely warrants a name but our guidebook also warned, “The ocean near McLean Fraser Pt is renowned among fisherman and kayakers for vicious weather.” It then goes on to tell a story of two kayakers travelling south in perfect conditions of light winds, ebbing tide and a 1m sea, having to deal with 35kn winds and 4-5m seas that built within 40mins. Once they reached shelter in Flamingo Inlet the forecast was the same as it had been that morning, 5kn winds with a 1m sea.
Duly warned and slightly nervous we continued south past the last sheltered landing in Wells Cove. It was totally calm apart from a little squall of rain and wind for about 20mins despite the forecast of NWesterly 10-15 increasing 15-25 at midday, unusually precise timing for the forecast. The blue sky was dotted with fluffy cumulus but with no sailing wind we were slower than we’d hoped. Would we get past McLean Fraser Pt before the 15-25 came in? A quick stop in Maybe Cove, no place to land but a sheltered corner out of the swell for a rest, a wee and something to eat.
The remaining 9km to the Point went quickly and we were a km or two past when the wind picked up quite quickly, right on midday, a good 15 kn. Suddenly it seemed we were surfing large waves with only one sail up. Just as quickly we were around Nagas Point and looking up the smooth waters of Flamingo Inlet. Phew, that’s that done and just in time too as the forecast NWesterlies of the next couple of days were probably too strong to have been on the water on such a tricky bit of coast. We’ve not finished by any means but from here on especially the East coast of Moresby the paddling is much more benign and less exposed.
Relieved and both feeling tired, we called a lazy day off at Anvil Cove. We didn’t get up until 8:30 the next morning , an hour and half later than we’re on the water most days! It was a glorious day of RnR. There was hardly a cloud in the sky all day but the weather buoys off Moresby Is were reporting 18kn. Not as much as forecast but still a fair bit of wind around.
As we were lazing around we also had a close encounter with a black bear. It appeared suddenly out of the forest on to the beach just 20m from where we were sitting. I shouted something along the lines of “Shoo,clear off”. It turned its head to look at us with disdain as if to say, “I live here, YOU clear off,” then wandered down the beach onto the tidal rocks and back into the forest. Stunned, we both looked at each other “Did you....” “Was that what.....” “Blimey, just there....”
It had also strolled within a metre or so of all our food bags. They’d been hung in a tree overnight out of reach by bears as usual but needing them throughout the day we’d lowered them and tucked them into the shade. That bear probably missed a feast as I’m not sure what we’d have done if it had taken an interest in our food as we were a weeks paddling from the nearest shop.
